Modern consumer and industrial packaging often includes reinforcing tapes or tear tapes as part of their construction. Various tape dispensers have been designed to dispense such tapes into corrugator and packaging equipment. Known tape dispensers include a first spindle that supports an unwinding spool of tape and a second spindle that supports a stationary, or standby, spool of tape. To provide a continuous feed of tape, splicing techniques have been developed for automatically splicing together the trailing end of the unwinding spool of tape to the leading end of the standby spool of tape.
One example of a tape dispenser and splicing technique is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,917,327 to Asbury, Jr. et al. In the splicing technique disclosed in the '327 patent, the trailing end of a first spool of tape is provided with a pin and the leading end of a second spool of tape is provided with a piece of string or cord. As the first spool of tape is being dispensed, an operator forms a loop around the tape of the first spool with the string by placing the string around the tape and tying the ends of the string together. When the first spool is depleted, the pin engages the loop to link the tape of the first spool to the tape of the second spool, causing the tape of the first spool to cause the second spool to begin rotating and pull the tape from the second spool into the packaging equipment.
A continuing need exists for improved techniques for splicing one spool of tape to another spool of tape.